TODAY'S
EDITORIAL: Intelligent Origin

Feb 5, 2005, 12.00 AM IST

Search for life beyond Darwin's theory

The US Supreme Court may have declared the intermingling of church and state unconstitutional in 1988. But 17 years down, attitudes in that country — as indeed in many others — have changed significantly. Even hardcore science teachers are discovering that an increasing number of students are wanting a link to divine origin by giving "creation teaching" at least equal airtime along with evolution. In any case what's so wrong in expecting schools to make the teaching of evolution more rigorous by bringing up its drawbacks and examining areas of controversy it shares with the people who are promoting an alternative theory called intelligent design, or ID? These are people who say there's simply too much pattern in everything, from the microcosm of subatomic particles to the macrosphere of galactic superclusters, to insist that only blind chance could have played a part in all their structural make-up. If anything,if Darwin's theory is taught along with ID it might even plug the several loopholes that still exist in it.

Already in the past such patchwork has led to major reforms that are today known as neo-Darwinism and the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution. Also, ever since some 350 biologists signed a declaration challenging evolution, many scientists and science teachers have come round to believe there is place for valid criticism — especially in areas dealing with the origin and complex designs of living systems. However, mainstream scientists and philosophers who accept Darwinian evolution and reject any godlike intervention have routinely nixed the idea, upholding that science is inherently committed to naturalistic premises. At the same time though, more and more people are beginning to believe in ID. This can be gauged from the fact that only recently one of the world's best known philosophers and a passionate proponent of atheism for over half a century, Professor Antony Flew, changed his mind at the age of 81. The reason according to him was because researchers' investigation of DNA has shown the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved. Or as Prof Flew put it, "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism". Like a lot of intelligent people, he accepts Darwinian evolution as the most compelling process by which speciation and the variety of life could have come about, but doubts that it alone could explain the ultimate origins of life. Proponents of ID think intelligent design could. Problem is, who created ID?

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